Sunday, February 19, 2012

In honor of my ginger nieces (Hi Allie! Hi Annie!), here's the fairy I made at Art Attack, minus her little flower dish. And here are the pink rhinestones I bought on clearance at Thunderbird. Hmmmmm.....what kind of glue should I use to attach Swarovski's to ceramic glaze?

Tomorrow Curt the Wonder Contractor installs the new bifold doors in the studio closet. So, today my job is to move things out of the way. After that, we'll paint the walls and then I can put the furniture in there. Where is the MOTH? Oh well, guess I'll have to adorn my ginger fairy with Swarovskis...

Monday, February 13, 2012

I didn't get photos of everything all finished but here's what I made this year:

TOOLS: The only tools you need are a stapler and a pair of scissors (unless you want to tear your paper by hand).

SUPPLIES: Here's what I used for the basic cone:

A square piece of paper (I used 6" x 6")

A slightly larger piece of tissue paper (I used 8" x 8")

One chenille stem (pipe cleaner)

An 18" to 24" length of ribbon

Valentine chocolates (3-4 pieces for each cone)

1. Fold the paper square into a triangle. The folded edge becomes the top of your cone.

2. Fold the chenille stem in half and pinch the fold. This pinched part will be stapled to the back of the cone.

3. Play with the shape of the end of the chenille stem to form a heart, overlapping circles, or other shape. For a sturdier hanging loop, wrap the ends of the wire tightly around the hanging loop. Now, set the shaped chenille stem aside for a minute.

4. Wrap the triangle of paper around itself, to form a cone. Try to get a pointy tip.

5. You'll have two overlapping triangles sticking up from the top. Fold the inside triangle over to the outside, and fold the outside triangle over to the inside. Pinch tightly while you pick up the shaped chenille stem.

6. Lay the chenille stem against the back of the cone, near the top, and using one staple, attach the stem to the outside of the cone. At the same time, your staple will be securing the folded triangles and the shape of the cone. If you can't manage this with one staple, just use more staples.

7. Tuck the center of the ribbon between the cone and the chenille stem. This will keep the ribbon from sliding down off the cone.

8. Bring the ends of the ribbon around to the front, and tie a bow.

9. Gently push the tissue paper into the cone, being careful not to tear it. It helps to hold up one finger, then wrap the tissue paper around it before sticking it into the cone.

10. Put 2-4 pieces of candy into the tissue paper and serve!

VARIATIONS:

Add stickers, tags, stamps, etc. text boxes, to the outside of the cone

Instead of tissue, use shredded papers, moss, or fabric inside the cone

Instead of ribbon, or in addition to it, use glitter tape, embellished wire, vintage lace, etc.

Instead of scrapbooking paper, use old book pages, Sunday Comics, paper bags, etc.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

As I embark on probably my third go-around in about five years, trying to squeeze a larger, dysfunctional studio into a smaller, brilliantly functional space (one can dream), I have finally surrendered -- buying more organizers is not going to make me organized.

But hey that didn't stop me from picking up a few of these vertical hanging jewelry organizers from Target. They're about $7.00 and they hold 24 items in clear pockets. Perfect for my inkpads!

They are just about the right width to hang on my bifold closet doors if need be, or here in the closet, there they only take up about 6 inches of space. They seem fairly sturdy, with stitching all around the pockets; and the hanger at the top comes up through heavy, folded canvas-type fabric.

And now I feel terribly clever. I have successfully moved 1/100th of what needs to be reorganized. Only 99/100ths to go!

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

In my last post, I recommended several Valentine-themed fonts available at dafont.com. If you've never downloaded, installed, and typed with free fonts, here are some quick tips to get you going:

Download the .zip file. At dafont, you download a compressed (.zip) file that usually contains more than one file, such as a Truetype font (.ttf extension) plus other versions, and perhaps additional variations of the same font, such as bold or italics versions.

Install the font. After you uncompress the file, you have to install the font. The steps involved depend on your computer's operating system. Here are the instructions from Windows: How to install/uninstall fonts (Windows).

Select the font in your software program. Now that the font is installed on your system, you can access it from your favorite software programs, wherever you select a font. Once you select the font, start typing!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Last night I wanted to print some Valentine-ish words to cut out and paste onto treat cones, so naturally I headed over to my trustiest font source, dafont! Check out the Valentine category (in Themes, under Holidays) or type in the keywords "heart" or "valentine." Here are a few of my favorites . . .

Heartland by Harold’s Fonts
Playful as all get-out, Heartland looks perfect for a sweet teen.

Hearts by Font de Material
I am always a sucker for a heart with wings...

Country Hearts by GorillaBlu
Not quite my style, but I have to admit -- this font would
be perfect on a greeting card.

Loverboy (no attribution)
Love me a little grunge! Still readable too, even at a small size.

Words of Love by Pizzadude
I'm kind of partial these days to faux fancy handwriting fonts.

For the skull on the left, I simple squeezed out a small dollop of turquoise acrylic paint into my palm. Then I mushed the skull, eye sockets first, into the paint, dragging the paint deep into the eye sockets. I let the paint set up for a minute, then with a damp paper towel, wiped the paint off the high areas, being carefuly to leave paint in the crevices, such as the teeth.

This is a great fix when you want your beads to color coordinate with the rest of your piece (e.g., Dia de los Muertos earrings and such).

VARIATION: Instead of wiping off the excess paint while wet, you can also wait until it dries completely, then lightly sand off the high areas with very fine sandpaper.

For the skull on the right, I simply glued vintage glass rhinestones into the eye sockets.﻿ Any color works, but here I used crystal AB chatons (pointy-backs). You could also use small flatbacks, but it's a little trickier to get them to lie just right. I used E6000 but a less toxic alternative would be the Ultimate glue by Crafter's Pick. If the glue shows too shiny when dry, just brush a wee bit of matte gel medium over the wayward glue.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

This month's new art bead challenge has as its theme one of my favorite books, called Conference of the Birds by Attar. First, I love Persian miniature paintings, and I really enjoy the book. I just might be inspired to play with this theme...